Videos

Resources for Space Settlements

Reading, Study, and Work. By,

Martha Adams

The term "Video" as used here, points to anything from old movies on film
to the latest DVD, TV, and on-screen internet productions. No actual video
files are here. This file identifies and discusses some of these materials,
with an eye to improved thinking about human settlements off-Terra. The
nuisance 'Digital Restrictions Management' features applied to some of them
are not discussed here. I expect you have found some method to cope with
that. The topic here is their usefulness for serious space settlements
work.

To think about us humans putting out space settlements far off Terra, is to
think about a reality that does not exist today. The objective of this
thinking, if you're in tune with Adra, is to think about designing and
building space settlements such that people can live productively in them and
advance our human future as they do so. But where you're thinking about a
reality that does not exist, there's a serious problem.

The problem is, the day to day development of reality is complex far beyond
any knowledge of it that you may have; and it's chaotic; and it's emergent.
That's less bad than it sounds: it's the character of everyday life. The
human response to this reality is, you use any resource you can find to guess
what is coming at you. Or where you are going. And for that, each item
listed here is a useful speculation about something that might be.
Take up the following items, one by one, and study them. And then -- move
on.

Links. Use the below list to fast-forward to a particular option,
if you know your way around here. If you don't, reading the paragraphs below
this list will probably prove helpful.

=============================================

As you think about human settlements in space, you are thinking about
placing humansocietyandculture in space. Ready
or not, you've just stepped from relatively clean and simple science and
engineering problems, into issues of grungy, fermenting, sometimes violent,
and constantly changing human society. Down and dirty; and the necessary
compression of full size humans into small lifespaces Out There will only
provoke more challenge. And as I review my impressions from people I hear
talking about settlements in space, I think few of them are ready for that.
For this reason, my videos collection here, is biased.

By not entirely rational choice, I've arrived at this collection of largely
non-utopian videos. If you want a quick description of what it's like in this
humans in small spaces topic, the following does it nicely:

"When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind
yourself, your initial objective was to drain the swamp."

These are videos that I believe people should study who intend to
think to some effect about topics of placing human settlements in space. For
best effect, do not finger the obvious failings in these works. These videos
are made for the business reason to return a profit. Too much reality fails,
here in America: people turn away from that. Rather, study these and think
about how they may reflect some reality which you could not experience
directly -- or which you might not want to experience.

Videos are a powerful learning resource, within their limits. The
seductive risk is to slip too easily from active observation to passive and
uncritical absorption. Don'tdothat with these!
Rather, pull out a notepad and keep notes....

I list these videos here because I think they are severely relevant to
issues around building settlements in space, and to the movement of some of
our human race to Out There. My collection here is directed in part, to
express my divergence from the thinking of people who seem to believe
settlements in space will prove to be, somehow, utopias. I'm as ready as
anyone to accept a Pollyanna point of view. But, this space settlement thing
is for real.

I did not choose these videos to talk about here, because I found them
nice. These videos all contain moments of powerful insight, and moments of
"How could they do that" wrongness in their fundamental making. If the
wrongness elements trouble you, then you may find it helpful to study how such
videos get made. The market as seen by the producers and by their money
support, is all-important. That is outside our topic here. I list these
videos as resource and study materials: often imperfect, but if you refine as
you watch (patiently), these videos usefully complement other resources.

=== 1984 ===

England seems to be producing some very good materials about character and
consequences of totalitarian government. George Orwell published his book
1984 away back in 1949. Which book if published new today, would be
too-much up to date. Orwell's book imagines a society and studies character
and consequences of a hypothetical class-structured and totally controlling
government. In the decades since then, the book became this vid / movie, and
its content has acquired an unforeseen reality.

=== Apollo 13 ===

This video is best viewed immediately after reading Gene Kranz,
FailureIsNotAnOption. Thus, the movie
and the book reinforce each other, leading to better perception of both. We
have an important lesson from that Apollo 13 experience.

Some people, especially in NASA and Washington, argue that we need to send
explorers to places like Luna and Mars, who after a relatively short visit
there, fire up their Return Vehicle and come back. Others point out that the
cost of going there to stay, is about the same as going and returning; but it
pays off a lot better. However. It turns out, for some reason, the return
trip is much more risky than the outgoing trip. Why is this?

Apollo 13 shows us why this is. Their catastrophic hardware failure
happened as they were outgoing. They had their fuel and food, and even an
extra vehicle -- the Lunar Lander -- to use for their survival. If that
unexpected (and unforseeable) failure had happened any time after the Lander
separated to go down to Luna, the final story must have been very different
from how things actually turned out. It was a very near miss. Read the story
to learn how near a miss that really was. Resources, resourcefulness, and
just plain luck made the difference.

Now let's look at this from a Mars exploration point of view. And think,
what if, consumables and hardwares mostly used up, the Return Vehicle suffers
such a failure? With up to six months before arriving back to Terra?
Thenwhat? For which reason, I have heard (and participated in)
serious discussion about the choice the first humans to visit Mars -- might
go, andstay.

=== Children of Men ===

This is the most recent British dystopia vid that I know of, and it's a
very good piece of work. When I was over in England, the culture there seemed
decidedly nice to me -- I liked it there -- and not then nor now do I see the
roots in British culture to be making these dystopia videos. Orwell and etc.
But somehow, they do it; and they do it very well.

Nothing of this character and quality is coming out of Hollywood these
days. In fact, so far as I am concerned, nothing is coming out of Hollywood.
...Well, not much: Peter Jackson did some good work recently, and he's done
another, "Sicko," which has provoked the Bush administration to attack him.
(Excellent PR.) I wonder if that sort of thing accounts for the character of
Hollywood's productions these days?

I thought this vid's ending was too quick and optimistic for a good fit to
the rest of it. I'm not complaining. It's a good vid and it's an education
to watch it and to think about it afterwards.

=== The Farmer Astronaut ===

I have heard some brief comment to effect this movie is unrealistic. I saw
that already, from brief TV shorts appearing when it was first released. I'm
ok with that: it looks to many like science fiction, but it's clearly a
fantasy. We could use a few dreams around here of a better future, as we've
been moving sharply away from anything of that sort under these religious
conservative administrations.

To be reviewed and discussed when I have been able to view a copy of
it.

=== Flight of the Phoenix ===

A cargo plane crash-lands in the Gobi desert. The people aboard the plane
think they will be found and rescued shortly -- or maybe that won't happen.
At last they save themselves by flying out, in or on a minimal airplane they
build from the wreckage of the plane they crashed in.

I might write comments in here about movies in which people do remarkably
dumb things, just to set-up conflict situations. But the story does highlight
the importance of social process for humans surviving difficult
situations.

One detail really troubled me about that story. At its end, the survivors
get their craft into the air and head off into the sunset. But nowhere in the
story, do they figure out where they are and thus which direction to fly to
reach civilization before they run out of fuel. For this and other details,
more attention to matters any good writer would pick up immediately, would
have greatly improved the overall work.

Where is the Gobi desert, and how high is it? How does it approximate a
Mars environment, and upon what particular details does the approximation
fail?

=== Lord of War ===

I rate this ugly, ugly vid to be one of the best works I've seen in all my
life. Its makers tended to a detail often glossed over: documentation. This
work is not reality, quite: it's one step removed from reality to make a
chaotic world reality into a meaningful, terribly meaningful, story.

=== Ordinary People ===

The original movie appeared in 1980, which seems to me quickly after Judith
Guest's book of the same title, published 1976. The "ordinary people" of the
story are people like you would find down the street, facing a mental health
issue. (Also found down the street, but usually hidden by denial.) This is a
powerful story about mental health and about the simple basic that concerning
mental health, denial fails.

This movie is almost unique in having a mental health worker -- in this
case, a psychiatrist -- who is approximately credible.

=== Outland ===

I've noticed this movie getting a lot of knocks because "it's a made-over
Western." I would like to mention in passing, that people knowledgeable about
fiction writing point out that there are very few basic plots, perhaps as few
as three or four (Robert Heinlein). If you are one of those who avoid movies
said to be "poorly made," don't avoid this one on that account.

Outland is placed in a mining settlement apparently near Jupiter --
in space. This movie came out in 1981. It stars Sean Connery, who I think
fits very well indeed into the overall story. It's good to see for 1) the
view of underlying business politics in action; and for 2) its construction of
what life in space might be like.

=== Robocop ===

Three Robocop movies seem to have been produced: the one you want to see is
the first, which appeared in 1987. It is an interesting and sometimes (black)
humorous story from a world in which the dividing line between 'human' and
'machine' has largely disappeared. If that happens, then how is the world
different from now?

An interesting scene is a well armed Police robot, equal to any challenge
in battle -- but it can't go down stairs. Which is interesting: the Japanese
are now making humanoid robots that can go down stairs; but in one
video scene I had out of cyberspace, I saw one of them take a very bad fall.
Learning experience.

It's interesting from my point of view, that the Robocop as shown in the
movie, is well along toward being an autonomous individual that would walk
outdoors and function -- inspace.

=== Soylent Green ===

This is a movie, originally released in 1973, starring Edward G. Robinson
in his last role (which he fills most excellently) and also, Charlton Heston
as a young man. The story setting is New York City in year 2022.

Now, Terra's resources are limited; but us humans can multiply without
limit (until reason or nature set a limit, and these days, reason is weak).
Thus sooner or later, a collision is certain, and some sort of social response
to it. Will this response be good and appropriate? I've already touched on
that. SoylentGreen is an all too plausible construction of how
such a future might go.

There are two good reasons for space settlers to study this story. The
first is, its realizable society. Which is a direction an off-Terra
settlement might inadvertently choose for its evolution, and that would be a
very bad thing.

And the second reason for space settlers to look at it is: that such a
society could not mount any life and settlement program into space. It is a
kind of story that could happen here; indeed, it ishappening
here. And when that society arrives, us humans are permanently locked down to
this planet, and in future generations we'll diminish to nothing. Just like
our many predecessor species, and for basically, the same reasons.

=== THX 1138 ===

This movie is Kubrick's first work, developed from a project he did while
in school (college). It was originally released in 1971. I do not recall
when I first saw it but I do recall it shocked me. Then.

Now the world is changed, and too much of that change is not, in human
terms, progressive. Which is a whole another story: I see this movie now as a
cautionary tale for whoever plans an off-Terra settlement.

My reasoning is this. Down thru history, planners of Great Projects have
held out great prospects for their scheme, when completed. I will not expand
on that; but I have in mind the Egyptian pyramids, whose construction was
likely preceded by descriptions of the wonders to follow, and what are those
pyramids and the society around them now? At the other end of the range we
find the recent Big Dig in Boston, forecast to cost around $2 billion. Today
the cost (that is admitted in public) is around $15 billion; another $330
million of additional costs turned up recently. Boston experienced severe
inconveniences during this work, and now that it is done, what did that
accomplish?

All of which illustrates a principle for Settlements planners to keep in
mind. And when I look at current plans for Settlements on Mars and elsewhere,
I believe that when space Settlements begin to be translated into reality,
this reality will be less like those utopian projections and much more like
the interior of a Russian submarine I visited recently.

And, much more like the reality we see in THX 1138. In this movie,
the people all live in an underground city, watched over by an all-powerful
elite and their assorted instruments. This parallels the setting of Orwell's
'1984' and it illustrates again the terrible human risks of total-control
planning. But -- how are Settlements planners going to avoid going this
total-control route?

Because, all life in our basically hostile universe, exists only
within a protective shell. (In fact, that's so here on Terra, too; if you
think about it.) Off Terra, the shell will be human made, necessarily at
minimum cost. Which means, among other things, minimumtolerablesize. The utopian pictures of nice off-Terra
settlements that we see around, certainly won't happen in our time nor soon
after it. Thus life in early Settlements must be close and cramped.
Our Settlements planners need to look at India and China. How do they do that
crowding, in their society? How can we adjust our culture to cope with it and
not lose ourselves? I see a lot of mighty serious work to be done here.

And because, all this Settlement stuff will take money -- lots of it. And
what will the people who supply the money demand as insurance?
Control! Lots of it. Now, a talent for money does not correlate with
sensitivity nor talent for human social psychology and related work. Thus the
control they demand (and they get it else no investment money provided)
will be strict and probably puritanical.

All of which, adds up to early Settlements being not the projected utopias
we all see (and enjoy) pretty pictures of. Rather, they will of necessarily
be tightlyregulatedpressurecookers. For a
preview of which, see 'THX 1138'.

=== V For Vendetta ===

'V' is yet another of those really good dystopia videos coming out of
England. Actually, it's appeared as a book; as a comic; and as a video. It
is more a fantasy than are the other English dystopia works, thus more
symbolic. But every bit as real in its meaning.

I want to digress a moment, about fiction and fantasy, vs reality. In my
experience, writing reality is generally a poor way to express reality. To do
reality, requires fiction. Nonfiction is useful and powerful in its place,
but only fiction can get right down to reality. Further, no nonfiction can be
placed beyond the moment it's written. Nonfiction beyond now is no longer
nonfiction. It has become something else, however knowledgeable and expert
its writer. Only fiction can peer beyond the moment of now, into the
future. That is why several items here and elsewhere in Adra, are
fiction works.

'V' reflects a reality one of the Kennedys caught a few years ago in his
wonderful phrase, "Those who stop evolution, force revolution." The writer of
'V' has made a very good story out of this dry basic.